Bits and Pieces

This week was lots of work in the shop fixing, making and tweaking. I rebuilt the Whale Gusher manual pump. I can't imagine it was original but it easily was 30 yrs old. Removed it and stripped it down then sand blasted the aluminum casing. A new coat of paint inside and out, a rebuild kit with new flappers and diaphragm. Even made a new handle top out of a golf ball. Pictures showing before, after and the rebuild kit. It was previously installed in the Starboard cockpit lazarette. I don't think this is a good location. I wouldn't want to be pumping out with the entire lazarette open to the elements. It is recommended that a manual pump be located below where you can close the hatch and pump her out. I think it's new location will be on the new engine compartment side wall on the starboard side, through the open bulkhead. This way it won't be visable all the time and you will be able to sit on the berth and pump.

Got to work on the new mounting and backing plates for the lifeline stanchions. Previously they were mounted on a teak base on top of the teak deck. Both of which are gone now, a piece is in the picture below on the far left as a comparison. Overall thickness was about 3/4", 3/8" for the base and 3/8" for the teak deck. The new polypropylene thermoplastic composite bases I made from scrape race car splitters and are 1/2" thick. These will be painted the same color as the deck. The backing plates are 1/4" aluminum. There were no backing plates prior so this will be an improvement.

There was some final tweaking of the roller platform and placement of the rollers. Now it is time for varnish then mounting. Still mid to upper 90's so I'm staying off the boat and in the basement work shop.

Bow Roller Platform

So my two bow rollers arrived after much debate (internal) on which two styles to get. I know that I will have different ground tackle requirements for lake sailing vs ocean sailing so I wanted a combination of rollers that could accommodate fluke style, plow style and claw style anchors in different combinations. The two Lewmar rollers I have now seem to fit the best and will give me a good balance for primary and secondary anchoring.
The new platform has been formed from a nice piece of Sapele that I finally committed to cutting after exhaustive cardboard template work and rework. First it had to fit the boat in size, scale and proportion. Then it had to fit in the for-triangle between two line chocks and over the for-stay bracket. When the rollers arrived it then had to be reworked to accommodate them and finally they had to be positioned so the blades on the two different anchors could store and deploy side by side in harmony.
The mounting will be finalized this week with a custom 3/8" aluminum backing plate, then 5 coats of varnish and coring and sealing the mounting holes. Once that is done then an anchor chain pipe installed through the deck to the for-peak chain locker. The rest of this past week was spent making all the custom aluminum backing plates for the life line stanchions. It has been too hot to be in the boat finishing up the galley work.

Galley Work

I thought I was done with bulkhead replacements. I switched over to working on fixing up the Galley cabinetry and only planned on some minor touch up. Of course once I started to remove things to get at the cabinet work the hidden stuff all crumbled and replacemrnt was the only option. The issue was I had not planned on this and was running out of marine grade plywood.

This technically is not evern a bulkhead other than it does run to the underside of the deck but really just forms the side of the galley cabinet. The PO had covered up most of the ills with some P-lam that once removed showed a lot of bondo work trying to extend the life of bad plywood. I was able to salvage the stove enclosure which was still good and all the hardwood trim but the rest and it's failed tabbing had to go.

Once removed I made cardboard templates and tried to fit them onto what remaining 3/4 marine ply I had left. At $100/sheet I did not want to buy another. I squeezed it onto two pieces whose joint can be hidden behind some seat supports. Not ideal but not really a structural member either. To finish it off I really need a piece of 3/16 ply veneer to cover it all.

I also did alot of work repairing all the cockpit seats/locker covers that had failed. The repair was with thickened epoxy and fiberglass to strengthen and some SS corner braces. The teak needs to be cleaned and sanded on all the pieces and the least bit of teak left in the cockpit but that will come later. Big news this week was the arrival of the bow rollers. More on that later.